WSR are aiming to continue a ‘fantastic start’ to the British Touring Car Championship at Oulton Park this weekend, with Rob Collard the joint championship leader heading to Cheshire.
Whilst both Collard and team-mate Sam Tordoff have only claimed two podiums apiece so far in 2016, it is consistency which has kept the duo in championship contention, with each driver only having finished outside the top ten on one occasion thus far.
For Collard, his start to the season has marked one of the strongest of his 14-year BTCC career. And although he has never won at Oulton Park previously, despite five podiums at the picturesque circuit, Collard admits that the BMW 125i M Sport racer should go well at the circuit.
“I’m really pleased to be leading the championship coming to Oulton Park, which is one of my favourite circuits,” said Collard. “Oulton has traditionally been one of the circuits at which the BMW has gone very well, both for me and my team-mates, so I’m pretty confident that we can be right at the sharp end despite the 66 kg of success ballast.
“I was on the podium twice there in 2014 in a BMW and if I can repeat that, it would give me my 50th podium finish in the BTCC, which would be a very nice milestone.
“Even more important than that though is to maximise every point available to ensure we remain serious championship contenders over the next few rounds.”
Collard’s team-mate Tordoff has remained in championship contention and is only 17 points adrift, despite being in seventh place in the standings, such is the competitiveness at the top of the points table.
“Oulton Park was where my 2015 season really stepped up a level after a mixed start to the year and I’m confident that we’ll see history repeating itself this weekend,” added Tordoff, who took the race three win at the track last year. “The season so far has been a bit frustrating in that we’ve had really strong pace everywhere with the BMW, but for one reason or another, we haven’t always been able to maximise that speed.
“If everything had gone our way so far, we could easily be top-three in the championship. Now that we hit a run of tracks where the car has excelled in the past, I know we’re capable of having a rapid climb up from our current seventh place in the points.”
WSR Team Principal Dick Bennetts is equally optimistic, adding that the current run of circuits which the championship visits should play to the advantages of the rear-wheel drive BMW machines.
“We arrive at Oulton in a very strong position in all three championships,” said Bennetts. “Team JCT600 with GardX have worked extremely hard on improving the BMW over the winter and the pace of the car over the first three events of 2016 has proven what an effective job we’ve done.
“Rob has had a fantastic start to the season and Sam could potentially have won at every round so far if things had gone even just a little differently.
“Now that we’re coming to a run of circuits at which we’ve achieved great results in the past, we have to dig deep and make every point count to make sure we maintain our championship aspirations.”